Letters to the editor for Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Tuesday

Aug 30, 2011 at 2:00 AM

I read with dismay, but not surprise, the findings of the report in Saturday's paper. I think I am not alone in my disappointment that privatizing Valley View is even being considered by the Orange County Legislature.

I read with dismay, but not surprise, the findings of the report in Saturday's paper. I think I am not alone in my disappointment that privatizing Valley View is even being considered by the Orange County Legislature.

What is going to happen to working folks if the tea party extremists have their way? First they want to privatize Medicare and Social Security. Now they want to privatize our nursing home. When you eventually need residential treatment, you are probably going to be shipped off to some other county or, worse yet, out of state to the cheapest residential home our penny-wise and pound-foolish county government can find.

I have never been on the county-run golf course, but I hear it is very nice. However, it is ludicrous that the Orange County Legislature could close our nursing home but stay in the golf business. What we have in Orange County is not a revenue problem or spending problem, but a priorities problem. We need to put our seniors first. They have earned it. They deserve it.

Sparrow Tobin

Middletown

The Valley View report's authors blame operating costs. However, they fail to point out that these costs were inflated with overtime because of lack of adequate nursing staff. The county administration wants to eliminate one of the county's success stories, a facility that is loved by its residents and staff alike, a facility much like Medicare wherein the taxpayers put in until they need it and then there is talk about taking it away. Several questions come to mind.

What is a "politically" feasible level? Is it one where you privatize the facility and dump half the staff and patients? What happens to them?

Oh, I know, the taxpayers can pay for unemployment, food stamps, welfare, mortgage bailouts, and the list goes on. Let's face reality: A Medicaid patient is not going to cost the county taxpayer less somewhere else. Privatization is about as healthy for the county as Obama's economics have been for the country.

The report also states Valley View's employees are the second-largest segment of the county work force and to sell it would eliminate one-sixth of the county's payroll. You did not deduct the $22.2 million reimbursement from Medicaid, leaving a net cost of $5.8 million.

David Grass Sr.

Pine Bush

I recently read a small article tucked away on page 28 of the Times Herald that the U.S. might back a $12 billion Pakistan dam project. The $12 billion construction of a giant Pakistan dam would be the largest civilian-aid project the United States has undertaken here in decades. Supporters of a U.S. role in the project say American participation would mend the United States' tattered image Pakistan has of us.

Let's not forget that Pakistan has double-crossed and betrayed our military and sent them directly into the hands of the Taliban. Does anyone really think Pakistan did not know that Osama bin Laden was in its country? I strongly object to any participation, especially monetary, for this project.

We need to let Washington know that the $12 billion could help our military families, create jobs and be beneficial to all citizens of the United States of America (to whom they need to remember that they are elected to serve before all others).